The Creeps review – reference-heavy mashup of Gremlins and American Pie is stupid-funny

It’s teenager Zach (Chris Cavalier)’s birthday and he plans to spend it watching Highlander and, well, masturbating – but an army of miniature demon snowmen have other ideas. It is the perfect jumping off point for a mashup of Gremlins and American Pie, and for quite a chunk of time the film manages to coast along on that kind of silly guilty pleasure energy, with zippy pacing and plenty of jokes so stupid they’re funny, plus cameos from icons such as Joe Dante (director of Gremlins). Unfortunately the comedy writing isn’t quite there, and the jokes rapidly revolve back around to so stupid they’re stupid. Similarly, the introduction of a couple of sexy nymphomaniac nuns initially seems promising – you wonder what their deal is going to be, assuming they will be more than one-dimensional sex puppets – only to find that no, that really is their full extent. Maybe there’s something refreshing about characters existing purely as eye candy, without any hypocritical woke pretence that there’s more to it than that? The film-makers have also baked in an array of references to dozens of brilliant films, which could have been a lot of fun, but you end up wishing it could all be a bit smarter and more nimble. You feel a little for Cavalier, who in the lead role delivers a performance that is as winning as possible given what he has to work with. Some actors have talent and some agents have brains, but there’s an awful lot of luck involved in getting a career going too. Cavalier is almost certainly capable of giving that kind of Matthew Broderick-as-Ferris Bueller performance, but here he is up the creek without the material. • The Creeps is on digital platforms from 1 December.